


the blindfold

by Ashling



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Married Life, Parenthood, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21612499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: In which Grace and Tommy have a disagreement about parenting.
Relationships: Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby
Comments: 16
Kudos: 43
Collections: Peaky Blinders Exchange Round Two: Season 5 Edition





	the blindfold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Impala_Chick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impala_Chick/gifts).



Tommy sits down hard in his chair and glowers with all the fearsomeness of those blue eyes. Grace, unmoved, rings the bell.

"Yes ma'am?" Mary looks as harried and exhausted as Grace feels. 

"Fuck off," Tommy says.

Grace doesn't so much as blink. "If Charlie is awake, could you send him in, please?"

"Yes, ma'am. Is that all?"

"Yes."

Mary curtsies and leaves, and Grace takes what she thinks is the appropriate amount of time to pause before she says, "Are you going to sulk about this all night?"

There's an edge to Tommy's voice when he replies, "Would you prefer I leave?"

"No." She says it at once, though quiet. That slides a little silence into the room, until the door opens again, and there's Charlie. 

Looking at him, Grace doubts herself, though she can't let it show. His hair is mussed with sleep, his pajamas a bit wrinkled, and he blinks like the simple fire in the fireplace and the lamp at Grace's side are too much for him. Six is so young an age. But then, she was six when she learned, or maybe younger. Young enough, at any rate, that she can't remember a time when she didn't know the weight of a gun. Her father, for all his fault, made sure of that much.

"See?" says Tommy.

Grace gives herself a mental shake. "Come here, sweetheart."

Charlie gives her a look whose sleepiness can't quite hide the way his little mind is working hard underneath.

"It's all right," she lies. "Everything is all right. I just want you to know that tomorrow, there's some business I need to deal with, all right?" She says it very gently. It doesn't fool him.

"What about me?" he says.

"You're going to go with Johnny Dogs for a little trip in the woods. Like we did for your birthday. Won't that be nice?"

His eyes are brown, but they're still his father's. "You were there when it was my birthday." He says it like an accusation.

"I know, I know. Come here." 

He comes a little closer, and lets her smooth down his hair, and she hates the look of suspicion on his face, but it also makes her feel a little better. Her child is not the kind that can be easily taken in. That's a comfort.

"He's my son as much as yours," Tommy murmurs, rancor in the sibilants.

"He's not a baby anymore."

Charlie looks up at her, and for a split second, Grace knows she is caught. It's only a second, but the guilt is terrible. 

"You're tired," Tommy says, and it's the first gentle thing he's said to her all day. He's right. She knows his right, and still.

"Never mind that," she says to Charlie with a quick smile. She hopes it's reassuring. She isn't sure. "I just want to show you something, all right? Here." 

The revolver looks ludicrous in his small hand, but she shows him its workings anyway, carefully, and makes him memorize the laws of the gun even more carefully: never aim at anything you don't want to shoot. Never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot. Never put it away dirty, never give it up save to blood family or a Blinder. She doesn't tell him not to play with it; he already knows.

Mercifully, Tommy says nothing the whole time, and Grace begins to think that all will be well. When at last Charlie has learned everything as well as she can expect in the circumstances, she gives him a kiss on the forehead and tells him that Johnny Dogs will continue his education tomorrow. He takes this in stride.

"Goodnight," he says, brown eyes no longer suspicious, just unhappy.

"Sleep well," Grace says, like her heart isn't breaking.

"Goodnight," Charlie says again.

"I love you," says Tommy. Those words come easier to him, Grace finds, now that she is the only one who can hear him.

The next morning, she will wake early and phone the hospital for the good news that Michael is still stable, and then she will get on a train to London to begin her plan, and Charlie will be taken into the woods and given the education his father never wanted him to need, and, in its own way, all will be well. As well as it can be.

But tonight, Grace curls up in Tommy's old chair, and listens to him humming her own songs back to her, off-key. They pretend they are both enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this satisfies your liking for ghostly AUs! <3


End file.
